Published: 23 March 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
After the last election, a year ago, Netanyahu signed an agreement with arch rival and leader of the centrist Blue and White, Benny Gantz, to allow the leadership to rotate after 18 months. Their agreement wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. The Prime Minister was never going to honour that deal, and Netanyahu's behaviour since has eroded the little credibility he retains with voters and other political leaders.
Netanyahu’s performance during the Covid crisis and during this election campaign show his priority is the forthcoming criminal trial – his trial. In a remarkable turn of event, witnesses will be called to give evidence against the PM just two weeks after the election day. The optics might be shocking, but this is Bibi after all: a man who could escape out of Alcatraz.
At the height of the pandemic, with millions of its citizens locked down, some Israel’s ultra-Orthodox flouted public health orders about social distancing. Netanyahu barely gave them a slap on the wrist, and often left them unpunished. This enabled super-spreading of the virus and endangered the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis.
Netanyahu’s response, or lack of, was driven by a desperate need to retain the religious right-wing vote. Without them, he cannot form a coalition that will allow him to pass “immunity from prosecution” legislation.
Abandoned by Israel’s centre and long loathed by Israel’s left, the only three parties Netanyahu can count on are the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and UTJ, the homophobic, racist Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit, and the Religious Zionist Party.
Netanyahu’s Likud-led bloc will need to win over another far-right party, Yamina, led by Naftali Bennett, to secure the 61 seats required for a majority in the Knesset. But he would then be reliant on all coalition parties and could not survive without them, and vice-versa.
This arrangement would result in the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. Bennett – who was once quoted as saying “I will do everything in my ability, forever, to prevent a Palestinian state from being founded within the land of Israel” – would be the most "moderate" force in this government. There would be no softening of Netanyahu’s attacks on the rule of law, democratic norms and religious freedom. Expect Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world (save for a handful of Gulf states) to grow colder.
Other election scenarios see yet another election held within six months; or a temporary "just not Bibi" government to emerge, one that would include an unprecedented coalition of parties from across the political spectrum (ranging from the left to centre and far right).
Under this scenario, Meretz, Labor, Yisrael Beiteinu, Yesh Atid, Blue and White and New Hope parties, aided by external support from the Arab Joint List, would cobble together a coalition led by one of Bennett (Yamina), Gideon Sa'ar (New Hope), Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) or even a rotation between the three.
Neither of these options is ideal but the "temporary" government could at least focus on healing Israel’s damaged social fabric and driving an economic recovery plan.
Last year’s US election has proved instructive for two reasons. Firstly, the incoming Biden administration has shown how a new leader can make quick, sweeping social and economic changes that start the healing process; and secondly, the insurrection on Capitol Hill showed how fragile democracy is, and how easy it is to slide towards a type of fascism.
Israel might be a different society and culture, but its citizens are also highly polarised and disenchanted. Benny Gantz's decision to sign an agreement with Netanyahu, after declaring repeatedly that he would “not sit with Bibi”, split his Blue and White party and crushed the faith of voters from the centre and the left.
One year on, public trust in the political system and leaders is at a record low. Israelis are cynical and fatigued. This has brought the country to a very dangerous position.
But from this dark hour, hope has emerged in the form of Israelis who have forged the largest protest movement in the country's history. The protests, which began in July 2020, have continued every Saturday evening since, are the embodiment of the outrage generated by Netanyahu’s three criminal cases and his mismanagement of the Coronavirus crisis.
On Saturday tens of thousands of protesters from all across the country marched from the Knesset to Jerusalem’s Paris Square, which abuts Netanyahu’s residence on Balfour Street in one of the biggest demonstrations in Jerusalem’s history. Our hope is that the spirit of the “Balfour street protestors” will prevail and Israel will wake up on Wednesday to a coalition of change.
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Photo: Anti-Netanyahu protesters in Jerusalem on Saturday (Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg)
